


bottled wine

by stars_andstuff



Category: Succession (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Dysfunctional Family, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Post 2x07, some Gerri/Roman, succession stuff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-17
Updated: 2019-12-17
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:48:02
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21829978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stars_andstuff/pseuds/stars_andstuff
Summary: Roman and Kendall on their way home from their mom's house.
Comments: 2
Kudos: 71





	bottled wine

Roman was late getting up in the morning. The baked pigeon didn’t sit well, like it was still trying to flap its gamey wings inside him, and he tossed and turned all night in the sparse spare bedroom of his mother’s mansion. When he finally groaned his way out of bed he wasn’t surprised to see Kendall, already awake and seated at the breakfast nook, cradling a cup of coffee. Their mother’s absence wasn’t a surprise either—it wouldn’t make sense for her to act like a decent parent with no ulterior motive—but Roman still felt the sting of her indifference. 

“It can happen,” he said, when Kendall read out the note she left for them. Kendall looked especially man-childish today, pathetic and fat-lipped like a toddler on the verge of a tantrum. 

“What’s your problem?” Roman asked, “Don’t want to leave without a goodbye kiss from Mommy? At least you weren’t here for dinner, God, I still feel like I’m about to puke on top of my shit.” 

Kendall wasn’t paying him any attention, choosing instead to stare into the pretentious abyss of his black coffee. Roman rolled his eyes. 

“Hey!” he barked, “Power on, you fucking robot.” 

Kendall blinked and looked up. Ever since he tried to fuck Dad over, he looked like a puppy who got caught pissing on the floor. There was only so much delight Roman could glean from his misery before it got boring. 

“What?” Kendall asked. 

“You look like shit. What did you do last night?” 

“Oh, uh,” Roman saw him tense up, digging his elbows into his side, “Nothing, really.” 

“Coke, got it.” Kendall said nothing. He’d stopped denying it, and stopped insisting that he was going to get his shit together. 

The drugs were something Roman never really understood. Sure, weed was nice, and coke was great for whenever he wanted a numb face and a long night, but it was a glaring weak spot, a chink in the armor, and Dad hated it. Roman hated it too, watching his brother clean up his act just to get it messy again, making promises and breaking them, over and over, ad infinitum. It was so stupid, so pointless. He felt a sickening turn in his stomach every time he saw Kendall brush off a nose bleed. 

There was a car out front for them, and Roman was happy to leave his mother’s house, happy to leave England altogether. Kendall, Roman, and Shiv had spent half of their growing up in this place, and the nostalgia was uncomfortable, to say the least. Mom was as unpredictable as she was unloving. Dad’s clutches were more familiar. Safer, somehow, despite it all. 

They left together, and Roman kicked the front door shut behind him, crossing the manicured lawn to the waiting Range Rover. He made sure his shoulders were back, his chest puffed out. There was much to be proud of, with the deal. He’d called to tell Gerri about it before going to bed. She sounded impressed, and not fake impressed like he was a child who managed to put his shoes on without Daddy’s help. Real impressed, like he had the capacity to be a dependable person who could get shit done. 

“Twenty million. Your Dad will be happy about that,” she had said. She sounded tired, and something stirred inside Roman when he thought about the silk pajamas she must have been wearing, the overstuffed couch she must have been lounging on with her hair down. 

“Yeah,” Roman said, flopping onto his bed with a sigh, “happy he doesn’t have to spend Christmas with us anymore. Dinner and presents. It was always a shitshow, you can imagine.” 

“I don’t have to imagine, Roman. I’ve been to your father’s Christmas parties before. I saved you from nose-diving into the fireplace more than once, and maybe if you weren’t black-out drunk every-” 

“Yeah, yeah, whatever, I’m a dipshit and you’re a hero, fuck you, see you in New York.” He’d hung up with a dopey smile on his face. 

Now, he wished he could call her back just to escape the oppressive silence of the car. They were swerving through the English countryside, past crumbling stone walls and rolling hills. The roads were sharper, skinnier than they were in America, and at particularly sharp curves Roman could hear Kendall stifle a gasp. Other than that, he was wooden, staring dead-eyed out the window. It was better than driving anywhere with dad, where silence was a knife held to his throat. Still, sitting there made Roman felt itchy. After about five minutes he couldn’t help himself. 

“So, Mom wasn’t too bad last night. Only had two bottles of wine to herself.” When he got no response, Roman carried on, “It would actually be sad if she stopped drinking, though. You know, all of my memories of her involve a wine glass.” 

“That might be a story for your therapist,” Kendall said, still gazing out the window. 

“You think? Do you remember that time we tried to sneak one of her bottles?” 

“No. I don’t think so.” 

“No? You’re kidding. It was during one of dad’s parties at the Hampton house, remember? You had to have been like twelve or thirteen, and you wanted to be a grown-up or something so you stole a bottle from the bar and brought it to my old room. We couldn’t figure out how to open it, so I stabbed the shit out of the cork with scissors and we drank it from the bottle, corky bits and all. I think it was a Pinot… fuck I don’t remember. Then Mom found us, stormed in like a fucking first responder, and she just shook her head and said, ‘You wound me, boys. It’s made to be drunk from a glass.’”

Kendall let out a sound that was either a laugh or a particularly aggressive sigh. 

“That sounds like Mom,” he said. The British accent was pretty subpar, but the line was verbatim. 

“Yeah. That was cool though, right? I mean, I always thought Mom was like, the good one. Because Dad was…” Roman trailed off. He was getting into uncomfortable territory just to keep the conversation alive, and maybe it wasn’t worth it. They still hadn’t talked about what happened at Argestes. Roman still hadn’t thanked Ken for trying to defend him, and he likely never would. It was too complicated. Any bad word against Logan would inevitably get back to him, and with Kendall acting like his little lap dog, Roman had to watch his mouth or face the consequences. He was ready to drop it, to go back to riding in silence, when Kendall spoke softly. 

“I think I expected too much of her.” He was fumbling with his hands, running his fingers over his knuckles, and even though he wouldn’t meet his eyes, Roman could sense his brother’s despair. There was that sickening feeling again. 

“Who, Mom?” 

“Yeah.” 

“Well. Anything’s too much for her. What did you want her to do, tuck you in, read you a bedtime story? Fucking listen to any word you say that doesn’t have her name in it?” 

Another half-laugh. 

“Yeah. She doesn’t have it in her.” 

“Fucking right,” Roman stormed, apparently still pissed about his lack of breakfast, “she doesn’t have a nurturing bone in her body. If she did, maybe we wouldn’t all be so fucked up, like, emotionally.” 

“Speak for yourself,” Kendall deadpanned. 

Roman snorted. Even their driver had to stifle a grin. 

“Who? Me? Emotionally unstable?” Roman threw an exaggerated hand over his heart, “I’m clutching my pearls, how dare you, sir! I’m the most secure person I’ve personally ever met! I’d say we’re--" he shopped around for the words, “--two peas in a pod of mental health and self-love.” 

“Shiv, then.”

“Oh yeah, Shiv’s fucked. Shiv’s a bitch,” he thought he saw a flicker of light in Kendall’s eyes, gone in an instant. He was in pain. Roman was aware enough to see that. “But we’re good, right?” 

Kendall nodded and looked back out the window. They were passing a sheep farm. 

“Kendall, I’m serious,” Roman urged, but then their eyes met and he buckled, “Don’t tell me you’re going to end up with your heart exploding between the tits of a hooker.”

Kendall stilled his hands and said nothing. He was so infuriatingly stoic, hiding his hell. Roman had nowhere to go from there; Ken set the standard, and if Roman went too deep then he was the pussy, the weak one. There was something between them, a tree they were both skiing around. Avoiding it was natural, ingrained in him from years of practice. A collision would hurt, and Roman wasn’t prepared for the pain. He wanted to give Kendall some kind of sign that he cared-- a genuine word, a hand on his shoulder-- but even that would feel like a sappy, overdramatized lie. 

_ I care about you. I want you to be happy.  _ He nudged the words around in his mouth, then swallowed them. 

“Uh, driver, turn on the A/C, my tits are starting to sweat.” 

Kendall put on his ridiculous headphones and slumped, more relaxed, into his seat. Outside the window, sun shimmered on the water of shallow ditches and wheatgrass flickered in the breeze. Soon they would be on the jet, and the world would revert to green grids and open sea, and maybe Roman would have a drink, and maybe his Dad would give him a compliment and he would feel shameless and light and good. Or he would feel nothing. They would land in New York either way. 

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo this is my first Succession fic, as well as my first posted fic in, like, years. I wrote it because the Shiv/Kendall hugging scene fucked me up a lot, and I wanted something like that with Roman and Kendall where they "talk to each other about shit"... kind of.


End file.
